She has NINE children and earns a fortune in the City – yet still gets home by 6pm to do the ironing for her six girls and three boys, who range in age from 23 to six years old!

And if that wasn't enough, she can now proudly boast that one of her children – 19-year-old Flo Morrissey – is one of the music industry's brightest rising stars.

That's having it all with bells on! No wonder she's nicknamed the 'billion dollar babe'.

Helena is chief executive of the Newton Investment Management company, putting her in charge of £51bn of assets. She's also the founder of the 30 Per Cent Club, campaigning to make UK boardrooms 30 per cent female by 2015.Of course, behind every great woman is a selfless man and Helena's is husband Richard, 43, who gave up his career in journalism to become a housedad and a Buddhist priest.

But together (with some assistance from a nanny), they have raised nine kids – the most high profile of which is their second eldest child Flo.

In fact, it's musician Flo who has been singing the praises of her supermum. She says that despite her mother's super-charged, mammothly successful career, she is still a down-to-earth hands-on mum.

In an interview with The Times, Flo said: "She's very much as she's portrayed, but I don't actually know how she does it. She's really hands-on with us.

"We've had a nanny who's been there since I was zero, so she is part of the family, but my mum gets home at six every day and we have dinner together, as a family, every night.

"My dad cooks but I'll do the washing up and my mum does the ironing."

It's a huge credit to Helena and Richard that they've managed to keep their children grounded - and not just because they earn a bob or two (in fact, they insist on the older kids paying their own way).

And it's that - plus the fact she's got so much competition at home - that has fuelled her own drive to succeed.

She said: "You have to prove yourself more, but because there are so many people you also have to look out for each other.

"I felt different at school, in that I felt special. I'm very lucky to have so many people that I get on with, and I would rather be with my family than go to some party.

"I've used my family as an excuse not to go to things. I've said 'Sorry, I've got to babysit.' And because there are so many of us, we're never bored.

"The younger ones will be playing together, making up a show; Milly and Clara, who are close in age, share a room and they'll be doing YouTube videos . . . everyone has their little group.

"We spend every weekend together and go on holiday together. It's quite an expedition - we take up most of the plane. You can see people counting us and saying 'It must be friends of friends'. It makes me realise how crazy it must seem. There's just so many of us."

The household wasn't particularly musical, but all the children learned an instrument, and Flo started the piano at seven. At 14, she got her own guitar and soon started posting clips of herself singing her songs on Myspace and YouTube.

Commentators have compared her style as a cross between Kate Bush and Everything But the Girl, 'with more than a dash of Lana Del Rey melancholy'.

In fact, her determination to succeed at music resulted in her dropping out of school at 17 and refusing to go to university.

Flo said: "To my parents' friends, not going to university is quite shocking. My parents didn't want me to leave school, but they were supportive."

They were also clear that she must earn her own living so she went unaccompanied to meetings with potential record labels, and on trips to play gigs in Norway and Paris, and to Los Angeles to record her album.

She still lives at the family home in Notting Hill and can't yet imagine moving out, but gets no pocket money and says she earns her own keep.

Flo, whose new album Pages of Gold is out now, said: "I'm not a spoilt brat. I'd feel guilty if I was being handed pocket money. My mum didn't come from a living-in-a-mansion kind of family; she had to prove herself as well. She's had to work for it."